What twenty-seven years of silence really concealed
The next morning, Sarah put the box on the kitchen table. Joe did not try to deny it. He acknowledged that in 1996, he was a different person. Alcohol, violence, two years of therapeutic follow-up, the existence of which he had kept quiet out of shame. When Sarah asked him if he had evolved out of real conviction or under Margaret's supervision, he replied with disarming frankness: "I can't really tell you." *
He left to live with his brother without resisting.
Sarah was left alone, her eyes turned towards the garden. Twenty-seven years of malaise had finally found their explanation. What his mother had done was probably both an error of judgment and a deep, awkward love. The two, no doubt, intertwined.
